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Availability Management

While customers dont understand 9s they do think that more 9s is better. What they dont understand is that too many 9s actually costs more than it returns. Which leads to the question, how many 9s do customers really need?

Which familiar ITIL process has virtually no added costs, yet can realize visible improvements in availability in as little as a few weeks? You guessed it, the Service Design Phase’s Availability Management!

Availability Management intimidates many new practitioners, and they often leave it to last or skip it altogether. This is too bad, because even without a formal ITIL program, Availability Management can yield dramatic results, as one of my clients, a major University, found out…

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) refers to Service or Systems Outage Analysis (SOA) as a method to improve availability. Unfortunately, the ITIL does not indicate how one actually performs SOA! This article explains the benefits of SOA, and gives you a 7-step guide to performing SOA.

Capacity Management

A key requirement for any IT organization is to ensure capacity to meet the evolving demands of the business. Many IT executives think “upgrade” but then hear “capacity” – relating “a capacity plan” to “a spending plan.”

Capacity Management is one ITIL process that daunts virtually everyone. It is often “left to last” because of its (apparent) complexity and scope, but, at its heart, Capacity Management answers just four simple questions…

Change Management

If there is a “burning question” as an organization drives its ITIL process implementation through the planning stages, it is “… which comes first – Change or Configuration Management?” And, as if that were not enough of a challenge, it is followed by, “Can you do one without the other?” and, close on its heels, “If you do one without the other will you achieve any meaningful level of success?”

One new office, two new offices, three new offices, more… If planning for major, repetitive projects at your organization sounds like the childhood game, “Hot Potato,” maybe formal Project Management is just what you don’t need…

One of the more challenging problems with deploying ITIL processes is our desire to make workflows linear. We teach the lifecycle one domain at a time, and teach processes in association with the book in which they are described. Reality is seldom so tidy, however.

Anyone who has worked with or around IT folk knows they don’t like change. In our IT careers we’ve probably been part of an implementation of at least one major new service that might not have gone as well as we’d hoped. The key to surviving the next “big one” is learning to change the way we change things.

IT is its own worst enemy – Gartner and others have documented that about 80% of all Incidents occur because of failed Change Management activities. However, it does not have to be that way. Change Impact Assessment is well known outside of IT…

Failures in the area of Change Management have grave and far-reaching consequences. It has been widely recognized that poor Change Management practices can result in a failure to meet service commitments, but have you considered the impact if a poorly managed change affects your compliance efforts as well? This can put an organization in a precarious position involving audits and result in a negative public image.

Few realize Change Management has two purposes: to limit change-related incidents and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day operations. Yet, that last part is what most implementers forget, often resulting in a Change Management process perceived by staff as bureaucratic, unrealistic, and impossible to manage.

Configuration Management

ITSM Industry powerhouses have stopped fighting and are now working together. They recently released a joint whitepaper describing how they plan to work together to solve the thorniest CMDB technological hurdles…

I believe that all ITSM enabling software solutions should carry a warning label that says, Caveat Emptor. It is up to you, not the software company or some “paid verifier to understand your needs and validate your decision.

A CMDB is a nebulous thing, and can exist in the minds of the organization, 3×5 cards, or any other medium. However, an enterprise CMDB is different. For large organizations only software will do, but not traditional relational database software. What we need is a new breed of software products…and they might be coming…

Configuration Management is probably the least understood and most important service management process. Yet most have no idea how to start and many think it requires huge investments. But you do not need to spend big bucks to get real benefits.

ITIL V3 incorporates emerging best practices for a Configuration Management System (CMS) modeled upon a federated set of Configuration Management Databases (CMDB). For most IT shops that may seem a very daunting obstacle to surmount. But, by looking beyond the task at hand, we can find guidance in several places – including architectural systems, automotive designers, and even mountain-climbing expeditions.

While the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) offers a great many things, it does not try to represent a clear political or sociological assessment of IT organizations as they mature. This is probably a good thing as IT organizations in different business models often have different roots, with different cultures and differing leadership skills.

Is your IT Process Automation (ITPA) automating train wrecks? Without the visibility offered by ITIL’s Configuration Management System (CMS), you may be sidetracking your efforts to implement more consistent, more effective, and more compliant and risk-free ways of working.

Just 2,000 employees with just two devices per user can result in 20,00060,000 CI lifecycle, status, and/or attribute modifications in a one-year timeframe! Manual CMDB population and maintenance is a nearly impossible endeavor — automation is the key to success with a CMDB project.

Continuity Management

Many IT professionals have followed the path of planning for natural disasters like power outages due to tornados etc. But how many have planned for unnatural disasters like identify theft and software viruses? Natural disasters like floods and fires can cost enterprises significant lost revenue and customers. Unnatural disasters like identity theft and software viruses can be even more costly. IT organizations need to consider both natural and unnatural disasters when using ITSM best practices to prepare their disaster responses.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) promotes the CCTA Risk Analysis and Management Method (CRAMM) for risk assessment. Everyone agrees managing risk is critical, yet few actually use CRAMM or any other formal system!

Throughout the ITIL, you see Impact Analysis or Business Impact Analysis (BIA) as critical to effective IT decision making, and invaluable to overcoming objections. However, few actually know how to perform a BIA; and fewer that a BIA is not something you do by yourself!

Financial Management

In today’s world of complex technology IT, infrastructure support has grown well beyond the days of a simple data center and a data network with its separate Network Operations Center (NOC). Today’s infrastructure requires an enterprise-level operations center that supports not just the networks, data center systems and applications, but the IT services as well.

Try posing this question to IT customers and IT professionals – pick the most important part of IT – pick the one process, one section of infrastructure, or the one department that stands out as the most strategic piece of IT. What responses do you think you would receive? Really, does IT have one most important strategic piece? The cut to the chase answer is this: None of the pieces are strategic by themselves. None. IT has too many parts.

In today’s cost consciousness climate rife with the mistaken belief that IT can no longer deliver a competitive advantage, more and more IT professionals struggle with justifying IT expenditures. The ITIL offers much more than process control it provides a roadmap to doing more, for more, with less.

Keep in mind as you work on your Budget that “dollars and cents” are “the language of the Business,” and that Budgetary figures are perhaps the ultimate way to measure and analyze your success in meeting the Business’ requirements.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) requires IT to communicate clearly internally and externally. For example Operating Level Agreements (OLAs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are examples of stakeholder communications. However, most IT communications are complex and so full of jargon they force stakeholders to wade through irrelevant information, driving them away instead of engaging them. Engaging communications require you know your audience and present your message in ways that keep your reader’s interest. Yes, our reports get read and you have readers!

Every vendor trumpets cost savings from ITIL. They are often quite nebulous in describing where the money came from. I am going to be specific; here is how a real client used a CMDB service management product to save over $180,000 a month and avoid a $600,000 purchase as they took on significant new IT service requirements.

Incident Management

Most Service Desk staff (those performing Classification and Initial Support) will not know the cause of an Incident until the call is closed. So how can they identify the problem? The answer is that they can’t and don’t have to…

Service Desk staff performing Incident Control provides the initial support, investigation and diagnosis to resolve incidents. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) says that key to Service Desk effectiveness is efficient Incident matching.

Infrastructure Management

One common complaint about ITIL is that it does not address Infrastructure Management or detailed operations ITIL is descriptive not prescriptive. Another little known ITIL book addresses exactly these areas of concern.

Almost everyone thinks they know what a Vital Business Function is, but in reality, many hold a mistaken understanding and are therefore not identifying or using them to improve IT service quality correctly.

Everyone knows metrics measure things. What most do not understand are the dirty little truths about metrics — what gets measured is what gets done, and metrics drive both good and bad behavior. Put another way, people do what you pay them to do.

Consider a Service Desk that is posting excellent first-call response metrics for hung router ports. However, the concurrent service metrics are showing customer dissatisfaction with quality levels because of the frequency of the interruptions caused by the malfunctioning routers. In this case, a combination of process and component metrics would have given a more complete picture of the service’s metrics.

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) tenets are that Business needs drive IT operations; and that User perception is the true measure of IT Service Quality. However, most IT organizations report on technical metrics like jitter and loss, which while necessary, do not show how IT Services meet User needs, and offer little evidence of IT Service Quality.

Measuring and reporting on IT efficiency and effectiveness is critical. The ITIL mentions Continuous Service Improvement Programs (CSIP), Goals, Critical Success Factors (CSFs) a.k.a. Key Success Factors, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as the means to measure success. In fact, ITIL V3 even devotes an entire phase of the IT Service Lifecycle to Continual Service Improvement (CSI)!

This DITY revels the secrets top troubleshooters employee and how they go about capturing critical knowledge. Troubleshooting or “problem solving” is often considered an art as opposed to an science. The authors of this DITY pull back the curtain and show is the science behind the art.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes the steps of the root cause analysis method called Kepner-Tregoe – Define and Describe the Problem, Establish possible causes, Test the most probable cause, and Verify the true cause.

The second of a four-part series that outlines the additional training areas IT organizations should consider when adopting IT Service Management (ITSM) as the basis for the delivery of quality IT services.

Anyone with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certification has heard of Ishikawa or fishbone diagrams, usually in the context of Problem Management. Aside from knowing it is a root-cause analysis tool, most have no idea how to use it.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) assigns Problem Management the responsibility for determining the root-cause of an event or fault. Often misunderstood, the role of a Problem Manager is to coordinate and guide troubleshooting activities usually for difficult or cross-domain problems.

The average organization suffers 61 hours of downtime each year with costs exceeding $1 million per hour for larger enterprises. And, these same organizations waste the initial 54% of that downtime just trying to determine who should fix it!

Most IT departments have tools that monitor their systems and create log files. Some are product specific, others are generic. But no matter what the tool, its always the people using the tool that matters most.

Many IT organizations think they are fighting fires, and that this is a bad thing. I disagree. I think its insanity, and that every IT organization and every person working in IT should strive to become more like firefighters.

One of the first choices to make when adopting best practices is to define what will be Problems. This simple sounding decision is much more complicated that it would seem, and is often the cause of confusion. It does not have to be.

If IT projects are closely aligned with business need and business urgency, it follows that supporting those projects will be of high priority to management throughout the enterprise. Woe to the manager who fails to support fully business imperative projects!

The first of a four-part series that outlines the additional training areas IT organizations should consider when adopting IT Service Management (ITSM) as the basis for the delivery of quality IT services.

Change is all around us. Most Users want change, but they demand to know that change is coming. That is exactly what the “Forward Schedule of Changes” and “Projected Service Availability” do. ITIL v2 specifically identified these two reports; ITIL V3, by inference, includes them in the service release package. However, no matter where the reports are, the critical point is that simple reports such as these can lead the way to gaining customer satisfaction and confidence in IT as a partner in the business’ daily operations.

Service Level Management

Innovation is still key to a company having a competitive edge. It is my observation that there are still many Information Technology (IT) organizations challenged to figure out how they can be innovative or how they can contribute to a company’s innovation.

Information Technology organizations whose operational execution follow an IT strategy leveraging both service management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices are much more likely to contribute, and be perceived as contributing, to their company’s business value.

Business is moving faster and faster every day – and demanding that IT move with it. As a result, IT organizations are moving toward new development methodologies, approaches and tools such as SOA and Agile to reduce time to delivery of critical business applications.

Leadership is something that, frankly, is not in abundance within most IT organizations. If you are reading this article, you most likely are already part of this exclusive group of leaders – because only a leader is constantly searching out ways to improve.

As more IT organizations adopt the processes of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL® ), the turf wars continue between the application development groups and the “infrastructure groups” (anyone who doesn’t develop software) around the use of a Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) or the use of ITIL. As I wrote in a DITY, while it is an interesting question, “…it is the wrong question to ask.

Next-Generation Asset Management (NGAM) was conceived around the idea that IT needs to adopt business practices for its own management. The central concept of NGAM’s vision is a simple one. IT services are its “products” and so all capital and operating assets associated with IT are investments made to support the creation, provisioning, management, optimization and retirement of these services. Mature IT shops have begun the move towards NGAM and will realize the value of its multi-dimensionality, serving technology and business needs as one.

The “MoSCoW Analysis” sounds as though it is straight out of a James Bond or Jason Bourne spy movie. However, it is actually a very clever mnemonic that aids in prioritizing requirements for user services and Service Management tools in the Service Design phase of the IT Service Management (ITSM) Lifecycle.

Manually creating after-the-fact monthly reports is not performing Service Level Management (SLM). SLM must show both current and past status as well as predict future problems, and this requires automation and daily or even real-time analysis of data.

An all-too-common approach to Service Catalog deployment is to pump a repository full of information – and then hope that it will be useful to someone. Unfortunately for the do-it-your-self crowd, this technique seems to be most frequently associated with spreadsheets and other home-grown approaches for Service Catalog implementation.

With the introduction of the IT Infrastructure Library version 3 (ITIL v3), awareness and adoption of the Service Catalog is rapidly increasing. As a cornerstone of the IT front office, it offers IT users access to the services they need while shielding them from the complex technologies and processes of the IT back office. While much of the value of the Service Catalog stems from hiding these complexities, additional value can be provided by reducing or eliminating them.

How many times have you found yourself saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?”, or “How did they (that company, person, vendor) create that SLA?” (and will they let me have a copy)? Or, perhaps you’ll admit to the thought “Had I known about ‘blah’ way back when, my life (job, struggles, IT processes, etc.) would be so much better (easier, or plug in your own ‘bla’ point)!

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has long recognized the need to align IT with the business and deliver the services most needed for business success. With version 3, ITIL adopters have more opportunity than ever before to drive business success.

Where does the Service Catalog sit in your organization? Most organizations follow the same general format of listing an “IT Service,” its description, a few key service levels, its cost, who may use the service, and how to request it. However, this view is far too limiting to fully describe the current realities. The truth is that the IT Service Catalog is growing up and becoming the “Enterprise” Service Catalog – a true killer application, used across the enterprise.

How many times have you heard that refrain at your staff meetings when you try to solicit some input or feedback concerning a change or transition? In the extreme, a psychologist may call it passive-aggressive behavior; in daily operations, however, it often indicates resistance to a change.

Are we there yet? And, if we are not there, where are we? It may sound like a line from any of a number of comedy films, but woe be unto the IT department that goes full speed ahead to implement a service change, only to find it does not deliver value to the business. Get back on track with the Evaluation Process, introduced in ITIL V3’s Service Transition phase.

A thankless job! That’s what some would call the role of the service desk analyst, even though service desk staff are perhaps the most customer-facing function in the company right alongside call center personnel – both in a position to positively impact customer satisfaction. Still, the service desk is more often than not seen by executive management as a cost sink: labor-intensive, no contribution to revenue, and challenging to measure its performance.

With tight budgets and Customers all wanting the newest gadgets IT has to work smarter, not harder. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) says to improve IT efficiency and effectiveness you need Service Level Management (SLM). However, the relationships between Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Requirements, Targets, Catalogs, Operating Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts can be confusing and hard to figure out. Where do you even begin?

Managing IT by service and not technology is the message of ITIL v3. Unfortunately, most IT professionals really struggle with defining IT services. In fact, some 30% of ITSM projects are unable to move forward because of this roadblock. Luckily, there is a solution.

We hear a lot of buzz these days in software circles about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Software architects certainly place prime emphasis on it. But, beyond sharing the ‘SOA’ acronym with ITIL’s ‘Service Outage Analysis,’ how closely does Service Oriented Architecture really align with ITIL? Read on … the answer may surprise you.

ITIL Portfolio Management is all the rage now. It seems everyone wants to define their IT services, create service catalogs and start the process of business IT alignment. Of course, ITIL itself does not offer much guidance on exactly how to do these things, nor should it. But something the ITIL does not mention is exactly what you need…

In my last article I spoke about IT’s evolution from its technological heritage into a Managed Services Provider utilizing the five domains of ITIL V3 as its ticket into the enterprise business leadership circle. Much has been written about breaking down the technological silos that have prevented IT from presenting a unified face to the business as a service provider aligned with business goals and objectives.

Many IT Service Management practitioners preach that an IT department achieves IT Service Management (ITSM) by building Customer Focus into the culture of the groups who support the IT infrastructure. After all, isn’t Customer Focus and Business Alignment what IT Service Management is all about?

What has ITL V3 done with Release? It naturally fits into the Service Transition segment of the Service Lifecycle, but, except for one segment called Release and Deployment, it is not there. Has it gone the way of buggy whips – or has it metamorphosed into something greater?

In the book and movie “A River Runs Through It” author Norman Maclean and his brother face the pressures of growing up. IT often struggles with growing up as well (assuming of course we ever do grow up!)

For many years, an IT Service Catalog was simply a printed document telling users whom to call for service. However, with the increasing commoditization of IT represented in ITIL v3, the concept and value of a Service Catalog is assuming a much more important role – that of unifying IT and the business.

Security Management

We have all been in this situation. We know that managing security is a mandate in today’s IT environment, but calls are swamping the Service Desk. “I’ve been on vacation. I’ve forgotten my password.” “I have a new employee starting today. She needs to be able to log into X application.” “I’ve been promoted. How do I get Manager privileges?” And, the dreaded “Some unauthorized changes were made. Who has access to the system?” It is like herding cats to stay current on who is who in the corporate structure, and who should have which level of authority. Access Management, one of the Service Operation processes, provides key guidance to help rein in those Security lions lying in the bushes.

What is one of the most important foundations of IT security management? Simple: it’s ITIL. That’s probably not the answer you would expect from a security professional. When asked this question, it seems people usually expect the answer to point to technologies for IT defense, or—to the extent they are relevant at all—guidance such as security-specific ISO or NIST standards, or compliance mandates such as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard.

We have all been in this situation. We know that managing security is a mandate in today’s IT environment, but calls are swamping the Service Desk. “I’ve been on vacation. I’ve forgotten my password.” “I have a new employee starting today. She needs to be able to log into X application.” “I’ve been promoted. How do I get Manager privileges?” And, the dreaded “Some unauthorized changes were made. Who has access to the system?” It is like herding cats to stay current on who is who in the corporate structure, and who should have which level of authority. Access Management, one of the Service Operation processes, provides key guidance to help rein in those Security lions lying in the bushes.

We have all been in this situation. We know that managing security is a mandate in today’s IT environment, but calls are swamping the Service Desk. “I’ve been on vacation. I’ve forgotten my password.” “I have a new employee starting today. She needs to be able to log into X application.” “I’ve been promoted. How do I get Manager privileges?” And, the dreaded “Some unauthorized changes were made. Who has access to the system?” It is like herding cats to stay current on who is who in the corporate structure, and who should have which level of authority. Access Management, one of the Service Operation processes, provides key guidance to help rein in those Security lions lying in the bushes.

Release Management

Most Service Desk calls result from failed changes, making IT its own worst enemy and largest customer. This makes IT the #1 preventable cause of IT service outages! The solution is Release Management…

Service Desk

Those of us involved in service support are acutely aware of the maturing of the help desk, now more appropriately referred to as the Service Desk. Contemporary Service Desk operations demand much in the way of technology and people skills for Service Desk personnel. The Service Desk is a key investment area and often a starting point for broader Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) initiatives.

Managing software licenses and their associated costs has once again risen as a high priority for IT. Executives are seeking alternatives for cutting expenses and at the same time optimizing existing investments effectively. Software assets are an easy target and Software Asset Management (SAM) is a place where significant cost savings can be achieved.

Forgive the pun on the name of the popular television police detective program. However, it appears that ITIL V3’s “Continual Service Improvement (CSI)” phase could easily decipher into “Change Standard Investigation” when you use its guidance to help establish Service Transition’s Standard Change models and Request Fulfillment process.

It is pretty common for Users to go around a new Service Desk, but what do you do when IT groups go around the new Service Desk too? Lack of trust in a new Service Desk cuts both ways and success depends on winning the hearts and minds of customers and internal IT groups – and it takes just 5 minutes…

Has your support organization evolved to meet today’s Service Desk requirements or are you stuck in help desk mode recording trouble-tickets and not much beyond that? Time has come for change! Not only will your team be in a better position to support “real” company needs, but can achieve financial savings by meeting more than one service need with its investments.

“Good morning, this is Jane Doe of the XYZ Service Desk. How may I help you?” Countless Service Desks across the nation and around the world repeat a similar greeting every minute of every day, and then they begin a scripted routine of logging the Incident, categorizing it, diagnosing it, restoring service, and closing the Incident. Many Service Desks streamline at least part of this routine by creating self-service sites that allow Users to enter Incidents themselves and perhaps access a knowledgebase to do some self-diagnosis and recovery.

As the saying goes,’ If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will get you there.’ This kind of problem is what many IT organizations face in the beginning of a Continuous Service Improvement Program (CSIP).

The service desk of today no longer acts as a gatekeeper but as more of an enabler of IT services. The modern service desk is the IT interface to the user community. It acts as the users representative within IT.

The “incident pit” is a slang term used by divers to describe a series of events, which by themselves would not normally be dangerous, but each causes a problem, which is made worse by the next event until you end up with a major incident. How many IT managers have found themselves at the bottom of an incident pit and didn’t have a clue how they got there?

Drug dealers and IT are the only service providers I know of who refer to their customers as “users.” Drug dealers don’t seem to be in danger of being put out of business. IT on the other hand may face an uncertain future if they don’t start treating their “users” like “customers.”

Quality Management

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) indicates that systematic process improvement requires a Quality Management System (QMS). As usuall, the ITIL is sketchy about the QMS, but does mention one in particular — The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) of the Deming cycle.

General ITSM/ITIL Guidance

In an October of 2009 itSM Solutions published an article from Kepner Tregoe asking the question Is The Training Room Defunct? The article focused on the fact that in-class training was dying a rapid death in many organizations, not out of any ill will but primarily out of economic necessity and directives to minimize an employees’ time off the job. With that in mind, education coordinators have been seeking new ways to deliver “just in time” education solutions that will help workers solve problems, learn new skills, prepare for examinations and receive support services on-demand. On-Demand Classroom Education Networks may deliver what coordinators are looking for.

In today’s businesses, two things are certain: first, Information Technology is core to most corporations and second, the fast pace of business change makes the services they require moving targets. The demand for coordinating these services across business value chains, functions, markets, and geographies will continue to accelerate, and it will be impossible to respond to this challenge without driving new ways of thinking and doing into the IT department. IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Cloud Management (ITCM) represent emerging frameworks and methods that will enable IT to more quickly and efficiently respond to their customer’s needs.

The phrase “What we’ve got here is (a) failure to communicate” is a famous line we’ve all quoted at one time or another from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke. Similar to the film, it’s not that communications are not taking place between IT and the business; it’s just that they’re ineffective or unproductive. Let’s face it, sometimes we’re literally thrown into an IT/business relationship with no history, faced to come up with a quick solution and expected to deliver results that show value to our customers.

The world of ITIL training & testing has changed quite a bit over the past two years. Today, one can be trained from Foundation thru Expert in an instructor led classroom, virtual classroom, online self-paced video or e-learning classroom or in a blended learning classroom that combines self-paced training with instructor-led review sessions. Exams can be taken onsite with a proctor, online with a web cam proctor or at an accredited testing center. These new multi-venue delivery and testing capabilities provide training coordinators with the ability to maximize the use of their ITSM training dollar while minimizing their travel cost and a student’s time out of the office. This multi-venue approach also provides the ability to accelerate ITSM adoption within an enterprise by enabling training coordinators to offer solutions that can be delivered anytime, anywhere. This newsletter is designed to help training coordinators understand each delivery method in detail so they in turn can use this new found knowledge to assist in the development of multi-venue training plan for individuals or an entire IT organization.

The process of selecting an Examination Institute(EI’s) to sit for an exam has changed with the introduction of ITIL V3. Like ITIL training providers, examination institutes are now operating in the amazing world of multiple delivery formats which include classroom, virtual classroom, self-study classroom and blended classroom training models.

Social Networking has always existed in different forms. In the distant past, people communicated face-to-face or wrote letters to each other. With the advent of the electronics age, social networking took different forms: phone calls, emails, texting, IM, etc. So what will be the next evolution in Social Networking?

Technology is a critical component in any business. During any crisis, if the IT organization is unable to respond, it will put the entire enterprise at risk. Yet, during a crisis, the thing that often inhibits an IT organization from responding effectively is the very thing that is supposed to save it – a reliance on disciplined processes.

When talking with people over the past few years, I have discovered that the term IT Transformation means very different things to different people. So I thought I would try to provide a common understanding of what is really meant by IT Transformation.

The purpose of this article is to show how, by picking a group of people with different degrees of technical backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, etc., a successful implementation team can be built. It will discuss how leveraging beginner, intermediate and experienced resources can not only help accomplish the project goals, but also plays an integral part in establishing a successful operations team.

Innovation is something that is rarely in abundance within IT organizations today. The vast majority of resources are spent merely “keeping the lights on.” Even the capital investments and development projects that IT organizations undertake are typically pedestrian, realizing only incremental improvements rather than driving true innovation.

The reasons why IT Transformations fail are as numerous as grains of sands on the beach. In this article, I will cover some of the more common reasons why IT Transformations fail and also provide some guidance on how to avoid the major pitfalls.

We’ve all watched action/adventure films where the “bad guys” jump out from behind cover and open fire with their automatic weapons pointed in the general direction of their opponent. In the vernacular, this is referred to as “spray and pray.” This behavior is related to the Principle of Evil Marksmanship, which says that enemy soldiers in action films are often very bad shots and almost never harm the main characters. The major difference is that the later are highly trained, but just bad shots.

Contrary to the prevailing popular wisdom coming from of many IT trainers, consultants, and industry analysts, silos are actually a very good thing…. don’t waste time trying to tear silos down, instead invest in making your silos even stronger!

Like the Grim Reaper and the IRS, IT professionals need to be prepared to deal with outsourcing. Based on the trends Im seeing in the industry I think we can add outsourcing to death and taxes as an inevitability of life. If you cant beat em — manage em as the saying goes

You simply can’t practice ITIL from behind a desk. Before you can improve a process, you have to understand the current process. You have to get out from behind the desk and walk the process, which sounds simple, but as in many things, the doing is not so straightforward…

For every complex problem, there is a simple and appealing solution that is wrong. For many, ITIL is that solution. This illusion of simplicity is similar to the illusion the Emperor had about his fine new clothes. To succeed with ITIL you have to understand why the Emperor has no clothes.

The convergence of three trends – high-speed internet access, new technical education requirements, and time and budget restrictions – make Remote Learning an attractive item on anyone’s on-going education budget.

It’s a frequent scenario. Your organization has done the feasibility studies and the analyses, defined an ITIL implementation plan, and established a budget to bring your staff up to the appropriate level of ITIL® training and certification.

Thinking back to your college days, did you ever wake up in a panicked state the night before an exam with a thought racing through your brain that you had forgotten to study something – perhaps you had not bought and read the course textbook!

Organizational structure plays a significant role in success or failure adopting ITIL. Correct organizational structure is critical to your success — but you probably should NOT reorganize to achieve it!

Today’s IT organizations find themselves competing with cheap technology and aggressively priced outsourcing alternatives. Only those IT organizations that can adapt to this new ecosystem will avoid extinction.

The second of a four-part series that outlines the additional training areas IT organizations should consider when adopting IT Service Management (ITSM) as the basis for the delivery of quality IT services.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an IT-thing. Yes, I know it benefits the business, but ITIL is inherently a set of IT workflow processes. Non-IT people, even well educated non-IT people (read senior executives with control over the purse strings) often dont understand what ITIL represents.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just attending a class or viewing an online training course were all you had to do to successfully pass one of the ITIL® V3 Intermediate- or Advanced-Level exams? No matter how good any of itSM Solutions’ (or any other ITIL course provider’s) classes are, YOU still are responsible for preparing yourself to successfully sit for the exam.

While ITIL V2 served its purpose of making IT organizations aware that IT service management could be done better, ITIL V3 provides the detail on how to make it better. With the OGC’s plan to retire ITIL V2 in 2010, I thought this would be a good time to write a DITY about what I consider to be the top five questions IT professionals have about version 3 of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

One of the greatest challenges that training and organization development professionals face is the demand on the part of their organizations for a minimization of employees’ time off job. Our own research shows that while there is a higher focus on the time and attention spent on developing capabilities across all levels of operation, that time and attention is not in the classroom.

ITIL “purists” will say, “Well, you can’t always do it that way because ‘it depends.'” Yes it does, but one major shortcoming of ITIL has always been that “depends” is the answer to most questions of adoption, with little consistent guidance as to what good decisions depend on and the application of that rationale.

I am sure we all remember where we were and what we were doing at the exact moment that we realized that our parents were getting smarter as they got older. It’s also comforting to know that as we age our own offspring will experience similar moments of thoughtful clarity as expressed in Montgomery Gentry’s song, “Back When We Knew it All.”

Have you ever prepared a meal for the first time, taught yourself to repair something, assembled toys at Christmas or learned how to use the cool new features on your iPhone? Of course you have. Almost everyone, at one time or another has assumed the responsibility to learn something new and to work their way through the assembly manuals, training videos, and support systems available to achieve operational success.

ITIL training and certification has become a virtual requirement for IT professionals looking differentiate their skill sets to hang on to their jobs or compete for a new one. The days of leveraging a technology certification as your ticket to employment are over.

I believe that all ITSM enabling software solutions should carry a warning label that says, “Caveat Emptor.” It is up to you, not the software company or some “paid verifier” to understand your needs and validate your decision…

The purpose of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is to optimize delivery of IT services to Customers and Users. The ITIL describes a set of processes, roles and responsibilities that cross many traditional IT silo boundaries.

The days of flying to exotic locations to get trained by your favorite instructor/consultant/mentor are over. Let’s face it, with the economic downturn in full swing and training budgets shrinking, we are all looking for new ways to acquire the education we need to deliver the value our current (or future) employer expects from us.

We are all familiar with sports teams, and how they utilize each member’s particular strengths to score more points than the opposing team. Workgroup teams are very similar, bringing together members from various departments and disciplines to complete a specific task or project. The only difference is – there are no rulebooks or referees!

The days of slapping together a slide deck, hiring a few instructors and going through a quick accreditation are over. The rules to becoming an accredited ITIL Training Provider (ATP) have changed and only those who follow the rules will survive.

The days of hanging out a simple “IT Service Management Training” shingle in front of a training center are long gone. Today, training providers and their customers operate in an amazing world of course and delivery formats.

One can only imagine famous cartoonists Gahan Wilson or Gary Larson drawing a cartoon depicting a mass of lemmings as far as the eye can see; all of them heading for a cliff, and one lemming saying to another, “Hey, I understand things are better at the bottom of the cliff.”

To IT organizations struggling to get just one instance right, the notion of maintaining and managing a federated set of Configuration Management Databases (CMDB) as described in ITIL v3 can easily seem off-putting. The truth is, however, that federation can actually introduce new levels of simplicity in defining phases and planning the scaled, evolutionary ramp of CMDB Systems. This column provides a few guidelines for getting “federation” right, combining a few overall recommendations for CMDB initiatives with some specific guidance for federation.

As an IT leader, are you aware of the knowledge and lessons that come from one of the greatest leadership and process-driven organizations on the planet? You may be surprised to learn that this expert is none other than the U.S. Army!

“Automation” may not be a term prevalently used within the ITIL libraries, but it is one of the key enablers for stepping up to operational efficiency, minimizing human error and ultimately enforcing governance to support industry compliance and minimize risk.

So you’re going to improve your IT services? Go ahead; pick anything – as long as it is small, manageable, has to do with the Service Desk, does not have to do with a CMDB, does not need a $500,000 tool investment in the first year, and does not need any resources that span across our customer service, infrastructure or application silos?!

Imagine the following scenario. You are a senior-level IT Service Management (ITSM) consultant with many successful ITIL process implementations under your belt. An enterprise IT organization recognizes the potential benefits of ITIL. It also recognizes that ITIL is not a ‘plug and play’ project due to the many dynamics of organizational goals, priorities, leadership, maturity, etc. Thus, it has retained you to counsel its IT leadership team as it begins its transition to the process-driven ITSM Lifecycle.

The concept of the Configuration Management System (CMS) in ITIL v3 is potentially a game-changing catalyst in shaping Configuration Management Database (CMDB) deployments. If properly understood, the CMS can promote flexibility and innovation; if misapplied, it can lead to overarching complexity that can stall even the hardiest CMDB initiative.

It’s a common scenario: You complete your ITIL certification program. You feel good, you feel empowered, and you have been exposed to some of the most brilliant logic ever put to paper on the topic of IT service management. Congratulations! You’re certified, now what are you going to do?

A study of 3,000 people in various jobs came to the conclusion that IT workers have the most stressful job in the world. IT even beats out the medical field for reported job stress. I think I know why…and what to do about it.

As IT organizations transform themselves into service providers, one of the major issues they must come to grips with is how do they create a meaningful measurement framework that enables the continual improvement of IT services as well as clear and unambiguous accountability for quality of those services.

Ever-increasing business and technological complexity are driving successful IT organizations to search for methodologies to ensure that new or changed IT services meet the requirements of the business customers, and create value for the business by being designed, delivered and operated in an efficient and effective manner. Application groups point to the use of a Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) as their solution. Some of the technical functional groups have jumped on the ITIL® bandwagon. So which should it be; SDLC or ITIL?

All IT organizations face similar challenges adopting the best practices of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). While not all succeed in overcoming these challenges, many do. Those that face these challenges and overcome them provide valuable lessons about what it took to succeed.

In today’s business environment, an enterprise’s competitive advantage is based on its ability to develop leadership capability throughout its organization. This is especially true in IT. Leaders within IT play critical roles in coaching or mentoring their staff to become high-performing teams.

In the alphabet soup favored by successful IT Service Management (ITSM) organizations today, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes how ITSM works; CoBIT enables IT managers to control the IT infrastructure; the Project Management Institute (PMI) provides project management guidance; Lean Six Sigma builds effectiveness and efficiency; and, the list goes on. What can community organization principles developed a half century ago add to this heady mix?

ITIL is clear that it does not stand alone, and in fact, you cannot “do ITIL” without some form of governance. But what does “governance” mean? ITIL requires a framework of policy, process, procedures and metrics that can give direction to IT operations (and ITIL activities.) Control Objectives for IT (CobiT) does just this.

Today’s multi-faceted business world demands that Information Technology provide its services in the context of a fully integrated corporate strategic model. By coupling the tenets of the burgeoning Managed Services Provider business model with the five domains of ITIL Version 3, IT can find tested guidance to what it takes to transform from its technological heritage into a place in the enterprise business leadership circle.

Today’s IT shops constantly have to deal with changing business priorities and technological change. Scarce resources are stretched thin, or worse yet; to the breaking point. You know you are doing things right, but are you doing the right things?

When was the last time you dealt with a live person to perform a financial transaction, book a flight or schedule a service call – or even pay for your groceries at the supermarket? Automation of self-service has become pervasive and is even making inroads into IT Request Fulfillment and Access Management.

Today’s IT managers live in an alphabet soup of best practices: ITIL®, COBIT®, PMI®, Lean Six Sigma, so on. They all mention the needs and desires of staff during the implementation. Failure to realize that IT staff makes or breaks any best practice implementation can result in failure.

There’s a move afoot in ITIL V3 that leads to a radically shortened Change Management process. It’s a move that allows the Service Desk to approve and initiate changes on its own without the full rigor of the well-documented Change Management procedures. Isn’t this putting us back on shaky pre-ITIL Ground?

Something seems to be missing from the Continual Service Improvement (CSI) volume of ITIL v3; ITIL guidance.Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation each lay out guidance on specific processes, functions and roles that take place within that Lifecycle domain. However, a review of CSI’s Table of Contents reveals little in the way of specific IT guidance. Maybe the authors of ITIL v3 should have integrated the concepts of Continual Service Improvement into the processes of the other IT Service Lifecycle domains.

After a long wait the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) version 3 was released. Among the requisite hype, pundits started pointing out the missed opportunities, and I realized that ITIL still doesn’t matter…

If the old rule of selling ITSM was to talk it up until the business bit, the new rules say you’ve got to start by listening and then helping the business executive connect the value of ITSM back into his or her business unit value chain.

Organizational change is hard, and, as is the case with the process and technology pieces of ITIL implementations, it will vary greatly based on your size, structure, and culture. But there are some common threads that will enable you to get the necessary buy-in to succeed with organizational change…

I have uncovered 7 bad habits that lie at the root of all IT Management Failure! Well, if not all failures enough for the majority of the organizational problems I see. But you can break a bad habit and form a new one in just 21 days…

The current glut of software tools, suites and bolt-on products oriented towards the ITIL Service Management suite is rich, colorful, and profoundly lacking in one respect — there are no compelling tools to automate Service Delivery processes.

One of key reasons that ITIL does not proscribe an approved priority list for process implementation is that such a list cannot take into account the relative maturity of an organizations existing staff, skills, and operational proficiencies. Only a focused assessment can do that.

You hear often that the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is not prescriptive it does not tell you where or when to begin. This is a common misconception since Planning to Implement IT Service Management (the ITIL green book) provides exactly this detail!

The ITIL is not a standard and has no auditing criteria. Some chose CobiT for audits, but CobiT isnt a standard either. The British Standards Institute (BSI) created British Standard BS 15000 as an audit standard, but it wasnt an international standard. However, BS 15000 delivered specifications for managing IT, implementing the ITIL, established audit criteria and corporate-level certification.

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